PHILIPS SYSTEMS RECALL - Future Purchases [POLL]

[igenr8]

I still have faith in Phillips as a good company

[davepap]

My wife works in a large hospital as a nurse. She said they have many philips cpap machines and ventilators in many sections of the medical center. She thought it was interesting how philips cpap users have likely developed health conditions by using their Philips cpap over many years. Eventually they might then use a philips ventilator if their conditions got worse. The hospital administration continues to pay philips for leased and owned equipment. Philips wins regardless of what happens to patients years later.

[cathyf]

I've never had a study that includes a titration in my sleep studies, but I'm pretty sure that the machine on the nightstand in my sleep lab is a PR.

Would any hospital take the risk of using a recalled machine on patients, and then the patients are injured in a way that could be explained by foam degradation and sue them?

Lots of patients never get titrations -- in fact many never have in-lab tests at all. I'm wondering if titrations (at least with PR units) are a thing of the past now?

And it's hard to imagine hospitals taking the risks of using recalled equipment at all -- ventilators got a pretty bad knock after being disastrously overused at the beginning of covid, and this isn't going to help their reputations.

That might be an interesting question for a survey -- would you use a sleep lab machine, since you know that it's something that needs to be cleaned far more aggressively than any home-use single-user machine?

[davepap]

Awhile back, I had a friendly debate with a close friend, who used to work for a large corporation, but who now owns a small company.  The subject was whether to trust a large company (Pfizer) or a smaller company (Moderna) when it comes to a vaccine choice.  I said it was better to choose a company that had been around a very long time and had a lot more to lose if they made a mistake. My friend with lots of business experience running companies said the exact opposite. From his first-hand experience running companies, regulators are far more strict, even in the finest details, on smaller companies that have less of a track record. A very large company that is dominant in an industry can often get away with anything, relying mainly on their past reputation. Inspectors and regulators feel confident that they won't have to do much for an approval.

Strangely enough, since we were both willing to take any vaccine, we both got the opposite of our first choice.

My point is that Philips, ever since purchasing the Respironics company, and marketing the heck out of the technology, may be able to get away with a lot more than a smaller company. Who dares to challenge such a large corporation as Philips.

[Hydrangea]

I can't bring myself to vote in this poll, because I don't know quite where I land on it.

I like my DS (and have experienced better symptom-resolution with my DS than I do with my ResMed).  I don't use ozone.  I live in a mild & arid climate. 

I don't love this current situation with Phillips. I find it suspect (and lacking integrity) that they didn't share this info until they had a replacement ready.  I'm also disappointed that neither of my DMEs have reached out to me with this recall info.

But how can I be confident that the other brands don't have the same problems, and just haven't come forward with it yet?

So I'm not yet disenchanted with Phillips.  I would be hesitant to buy another Phillips (until this gets sorted out).  But I'm also currently hesitant about ResMed due to the stories of burning smell halfway through the night with the white(?) flakes coming through the hose (or into the humidifier?). So I can't really place a vote right now.  

And what I'm even more suspicious of - with regard to this whole recall/Phillips situation - is this: why is SoClean not getting crucified?

[cathyf]

My point is that Philips, ever since purchasing the Respironics company, and marketing the heck out of the technology, may be able to get away with a lot more than a smaller company. Who dares to challenge such a large corporation as Philips.

...but large, small -- the customer is king, and the companies are all puny beside that.

Especially in America, the world's most astonishingly litigious society LOL.

(Trivia known to historians and genealogists: Americans have always been quick to "see ya in court" even back to Colonial times. It's something we inherited from the British, but we made it much worse! Some of our most fascinating records come from voluminous legal documents filed in ugly messy protracted lawsuits. And this was not limited to rich people -- middle class people did it too!)

Comments about how Phillips doesn't care about us and their real customers are doctors/sleep centers and DMEs. Well we may be little people, but those big guys all have lawyers, and those lawyers have to be telling their clients: "stay away from PR it's not worth the risk." Liability insurance companies must already be saying "if you used any PR product 1 second after the recall and somebody gets hurt and sues you, we're not covering you." Yeah, we're the little people, but that just means that we don't know about the hospitals and DMEs scrambling for alternatives.

My friend who works at my dme gave me a Dreamwear mask sample a couple of months ago. She told me that the Phillips sales rep sends them boxes of samples all of the time, and is kind of pathetic and annoying. They don't like carrying the Phillips masks because of all of the variations of sizes. So if there's small, medium, large, mw, lw cushions, and then small, medium, large frames there will be 15 different part numbers for the 15 different permutations, and it's a nightmare trying to keep stuff in stock. ResMed packages the parts separately, she says, and then they mix and match according to what their patients need.

If my friend is representative, you've already got PR being annoying. Now they are big legal risks. Nobody is attached to them, and they are more likely to say "not my circus not my monkeys" and move on.

[cathyf]

And what I'm even more suspect of - with regard to this whole recall/Phillips situation - is this: why is SoClean not getting crucified?

I've got to think that's coming. The one thing that I haven't seen pointed out yet is that on late-night TV William Shatner shills for BOTH SoClean AND personal injury lawyers -- late-night TV commercials are about to get really wild!

[WakeUpTime]

But how can I be confident that the other brands don't have the same problems, and just haven't come forward with it yet?

why is SoClean not getting crucified?

You can bet that all manufacturers (and end-users) are taking apart older machines, and SoClean cleaned machines, as we speak.  It wouldn't take long before other end-users would post photos of their deteriorating foam, and analyzed those chemicals, if they had similar issues.  At the moment, this is as a Philips-only defect until such time that there is another faulty manufacturer reported, or a recall announced.

In regards to SoClean, I see it as an extra enhanced cleaning system.  I don't feel they are really that guilty actually.  Their extra strong cleaning method will cause softer materials (softer plastics, silicone, possibly rubber) to wear down ("age") more rapidly.  All PAP manufacturers warn about that.  But with Philips, it's something much more when that foam just starts crumbling away, PLUS one of the components of that foam is known to be a cancer-causing compound, that makes the Philips situation unique.

So, I don't see it as an industry wide problem.  And I wouldn't use SoClean because it's a far too aggressive way to scrub your parts.  (Comet or Ajax cleanser may make my hands sparkling clean, but washing my hands with them will age my skin rapidly.)  I don't wish to accelerate the aging of my PAP machines.

[WakeUpTime]

*In the "Notes" section of this poll, I mentioned that users have the option to later change their vote as the Philips Recall advances, and someone feels either more positive or more negative about the Philips brand when it comes to future purchases.

It may be that voters in the poll are unable to change their vote afterwards - although I seem to have the option in the poll to "undo" my vote and vote again; but perhaps it's because I'm the thread poster.  I'm not sure that all others do.  If someone can confirm they too can later change a vote, please let us know.

[OpalRose]

EDITED:
The ability to perform certain functions such as editing posts or changing (undoing your vote in a poll) is based on membership level.